Today was the birthday of writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, born in 1908. 10 facts about her:
She was born in Paris. Her father was a legal secretary and an atheist, but her mother was a staunch Catholic, so she attended convent schools, and even considered becoming a nun, but lost her faith when she was about 14.
Beauvoir studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, where she was a high achiever. At the age of 21, she was the youngest to earn an aggregation in philosophy, and also only the ninth woman to do so.
In her final thesis, she focused on the life and work of the German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
In 1929, she took a highly competitive graduate exam in philosophy, in which she earned the second highest score. The person who beat her was Jean Paul Sartre. They started a relationship, a meeting of minds as well as physical attraction. Although they remained close all their lives, they never lived together, married or had children. It was an open relationship so both could pursue other relationships whenever they chose.
One of her relationships was with an American called Nelson Algren. Although he didn’t want to go public about their relationship, he gave her a silver ring which she kept for the rest of her life and was buried wearing it.
She was bisexual and also had relationships with women. This was at least partly responsible for ending her teaching career as she was fired several times for making passes at female students. When she was 72, she legally adopted a younger woman, Sylvie Le Bon-de Beauvoir, who she had been in a relationship with since her 50s.
She won the Prix Goncourt, France’s prestigious literary award, for her 1954 novel The Mandarins.
She is possibly most famous for her essay, Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex), published in 1949. In it, she criticised the deeply ingrained patriarchy of society and how it made women into “second-class citizens” who, she argued, are there only to serve men’s needs and desires. The Vatican added the essay to their list of forbidden texts.
At the age of 78, Beauvoir died in Paris, and is buried next to Sartre in the Cimetière du Montparnasse.
Close to her former home at 42 rue Bonaparte in Paris is a square called Place Jean-Paul-Sartre-et-Simone-de-Beauvoir, one of the few squares in Paris to be officially named after a couple.
Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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